Paid Members LaGoosh Posted October 13, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 13, 2023 2 minutes ago, gmoney said: Are we aggressively taking down everyone's flippant comments now? I didn't take it as flippant, if it was then my apologies @Merzbow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Nick James Posted October 13, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 13, 2023 Rocky Romero is their main envoy for the NJPW deal, isn't he? If giving him the odd showcase match on Rampage against outside talent continues on that relationship, then give him the main event every week. I'm actually quite intrigued to see how the former Sin Cara looks outside of a WWE ring, I've not watched any CMLL since the days it used to be on Virgin Media about 12 years ago (if he is actually from CMLL). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-d-d-dAz Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 Mexico is a huge Blindspot for me. I don’t watch Japanese wrestling really anymore, but was a big fan at one point, but for whatever reason never even considered trying to stay atop the Mexican stuff. I wasn’t being a nob with my Místico question, but my only vague recollection was that he was the original (and rubbish) Sin Cara. Whether being rubbish was his fault, the companies or a bad fit I don’t know. Still, I look forward to seeing if he can leave a lasting impression on me besides ‘struggles with trampolines and broke his fingers on Del Rio’s tit’. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members garynysmon Posted October 13, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 13, 2023 3 minutes ago, Nick James said: Rocky Romero is their main envoy for the NJPW deal, isn't he? If giving him the odd showcase match on Rampage against outside talent continues on that relationship, then give him the main event every week. Yup. Its the exact same reason he pops up on Impact every now and then. Just keeping the envoy sweet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 13, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 13, 2023 27 minutes ago, Nick James said: Rocky Romero is their main envoy for the NJPW deal, isn't he? If giving him the odd showcase match on Rampage against outside talent continues on that relationship, then give him the main event every week. Rocky Romero has been doing similar work keeping the CMLL/NJPW relationship tight, and has been getting pretty good reviews for his work in Mexico lately. I haven't watched any CMLL in months - I still have the anniversary show on my watchlist - so I haven't seen much of him, but I can believe it. NJPW can hold a grudge, and are still pretty old school (and CMLL even moreso on both counts), so the best way to do business with them seems to be to just have a bloke on the ground with whatever companies they're interested in working with, and Romero's as good a guy for that spot as anyone. I think when it comes to Forbidden Door he was a big part of putting matches together in such a way that it didn't feel like either side was getting screwed over. As for Mistico in WWE - a lot gets made of the language barrier and the "working the right-hand side" aspect of Lucha Libre, but there are so many reasons that coming from CMLL to WWE and getting thrown straight on to TV is a recipe for disaster, especially for somebody used to be treating like the major attraction. They're worlds apart. They wanted him to be Rey Mysterio Jr straight away, but overlooked that Rey had years of working with "safe" opponents like Psicosis all over the world, and wasn't as micromanaged and overproduced as WWE - a lot of the "botches" he became notorious for were dives and high spots that, yes, he may have slipped up on, but in a less rigidly controlled environment he'd have had the space to adjust on the fly, which he can be great at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 2 hours ago, LaGoosh said: I didn't take it as flippant, if it was then my apologies @Merzbow. It's best to regard every post on this forum as flippant imo. Mine certainly are, it's just wrestling! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vamp Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 I think Mistico would have worked a lot better if they didn't bring him in alone. Averno, Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Buccanero could all make him look good with their eyes closed. He needed that support. If you do that, gradually introduce other wrestlers in tag matches, let him get beaten up by a few bigger wrestlers because he was great at drawing sympathy, then you'd maybe have something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merzbow Posted October 13, 2023 Author Share Posted October 13, 2023 (edited) Sin Cara needed time in what is today's performance center, he's obviously a talent and I liked what I saw of him outside WWE but yeah, he didn't mesh with that style whatsoever and was rushed onto TV. Trips was pretty unlucky with his foreign signings for a tad. Wasn't it Hunico they ended putting him with? I'm trying to remember much of him, he seemed pretty unremarkable. Edited October 13, 2023 by Merzbow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 13, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 13, 2023 1 hour ago, Vamp said: I think Mistico would have worked a lot better if they didn't bring him in alone. Averno, Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Buccanero could all make him look good with their eyes closed. He needed that support. If you do that, gradually introduce other wrestlers in tag matches, let him get beaten up by a few bigger wrestlers because he was great at drawing sympathy, then you'd maybe have something. There was talk at the time of Averno coming in to feud with him, and that being at least part of the reason Averno lost his mask. Similar, I suppose, to how they had initially brought in TAKA Michinoku with the goal of having him work with Great Sasuke and make him look good. Obviously that didn't work out, but at least they had the structure of the Light-Heavyweight tournament to justify that, it would have been a harder sell in the WWE landscape of the time to bring in a group of (to WWE audiences) unknowns all at once in the hope that they all collectively put one over. Early on, they put Sin Cara against Primo a lot, presumably on the assumption that having a Spanish-speaking opponent was all he needed (they tended to book him with Spanish-speaking referees too), but Primo had never worked Mexico, so it's not like they're putting him in there with somebody who knows how to showcase what he did, and he was a complete non-entity in WWE so a win against him never would have mattered. And that's part of the problem - aside from WWE having never really understood Lucha Libre (the "Lucha" stars that have got over there - largely just Rey and Eddie, and Alberto to an extent - are as American as they are Mexican, in both culture and wrestling experience), they're not that great at knowing what to do with a sympathetic babyface that can't just play the superhero card. Mistico, like Rey Mysterio, is great at garnering sympathy from the audience and getting them behind, but he was booked in what were effectively squash matches and showcases, never to sell, and even if he did have the opportunity to sell, he had a mask that robbed him of being able to use any of his face to play to the crowd. On top of that, by not having a culture of masked wrestlers, and luchadores in particular, he was only ever going to look like a poor man's Rey Mysterio, because "masked Mexican wrestler" in WWE seemed like a gimmick in its own right, and when you've already got one, why do you need another? There's a hundred things they could have done differently, and today he would have been sent to NXT or at least to the Performance Centre behind the scenes to adjust to working WWE, but back then he was Triple H's flagship signing, and the biggest box office draw in Mexico, and they wanted (and seemingly expected) immediate success from him, and everything about how WWE presents wrestling was only ever going to stand in his way there. Throw in the likelihood that he was trying to play politics and throw his weight around behind-the-scenes as luchadores are wont to do, and that he and Alberto could barely be in the same room together, and it all adds up to an underwhelming run that was never going to be bigger than it was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 13, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 13, 2023 34 minutes ago, Merzbow said: Wasn't it Hunico they ended putting him with? I'm trying to remember much of him, he seemed pretty unremarkable. Hunico was decent. He was the guy they had fill in for Mistico while he was out injured, and then eventually do the two Sin Caras feud with. Coincidentally, Hunico had also wrestled as Mistico prior to his time in WWE, though only the name was the same, not the gimmick. He now wrestles as Cinta de Oro, which is another name previously used by another luchadore. Meanwhile, the current Dralistico wrestled as Mistico in CMLL after the current/original Mistico left. Prior to being Mistico or Dralistico, he was called Dragon Lee. But not the Dragon Lee that's now in NXT, that's his brother. There's also Myzteziz, which is the name that Mistico used in AAA, but the current Myzteziz is a different guy again, who sometimes goes by Myzteziz Jr. Got all that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Mal the Glorious Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 The whole "carrying on the name/mask" culture in Mexico seems a nightmare to keep track of. WrestleMe recently did a bit explaining why Penta is "Cero Miedo" and it goes into about 5 different wrestlers, curses/superstitions, dying in the ring, murder and a bunch of other stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted October 13, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 13, 2023 Danielson’s looking through the CMLL roster and getting a hard on! Send him a contract extension now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted October 14, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 14, 2023 Match wise it was a nothing show but Daddy Magic telling everyone to SQUASH IT while Renee tries not to corpse and the excellent Santana/Ortiz segment are worth going out your way to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted October 17, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 17, 2023 (edited) Paul Wight was good on commentary. I’d keep him and never allow Jericho to return. Absolute madness that they’re building Eddie Kingston vs. Jay Lethal when the dream feud/match with Kingston and Double J is right there. Maybe more than anything else that’s happened the last few months, Tony Khan not understanding that Jay Lethal is the worst part of that group is extremely damning. Proud and Powerful having the most underrated, understated feud of the year. Get this shit on Dynamite! Edited October 17, 2023 by Supremo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 18, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2023 10 hours ago, Supremo said: Absolute madness that they’re building Eddie Kingston vs. Jay Lethal when the dream feud/match with Kingston and Double J is right there. On the Zero Hour last week, when they showed Jarrett and company watching Eddie vs. Suzuki, I was absolutely giddy at the prospect of Jarrett vs. either one of them, and then felt completely deflated when commentary mentioned Jay Lethal gunning for a ROH Title shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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